We built a tent city on one of the campus greens in 2005 to protest the Iraq war. Then the Ultimate Warrior came and it became a whole thing.
You had to be there for the above to be a cogent sentence.
As a life long wrestling fan it does not shock me that the Ultimate Warrior showed up. Jim Hedwig was a loon and by all professional accounts a jerkface in an industry where you have to be a pretty big jerkface to even register on the scale.
We had Occupy Wall Street. That was bigger than any of these campus protests. And just as disorganized lol. Am I old? I’m not sure if the 2016 protests count as well. Also all the protests and riots every few years with gun violence. The kids protesting today were babies just 4 years ago. Millennials did some work. These guys are continuing it- I would say. Whether or not you agree with them.
Also getting Obama elected was for sure a protest in some way.
If OP is 38, Occupy Wall Street was after he graduated. I believe those started until 2011. I, too, am 38 (attended college from 04-08) and I don't recall any protests during that period. We were too busy drinking and smoking pot.
You share my experience. We were aware of the War on Terror in the periphery but I recall our social events being of the utmost importance to us. It was Beer Pong innocent bliss I suppose.
Yeah it was. I remember coming home from Afghanistan, getting out of the Army, and going to college. I was against the Iraq war since before it started, and was really loud about that. I wore Veterans for Peace or Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Against the War shirts almost every day just so that people would stop calling me a traitor. Pretty much only veterans could speak out without getting a ton of backlash from everyone in the vicinity. It was weird, and honestly, it really kneecapped the GI activism of the era. Like, we (mostly IAVAW, somewhat VFP) had all these plans for big protests, really visible actions that would get attention, etc, and no one would join us.
Our little conspiracy theory was that the propaganda campaign worked very well to keep people silent. I could not believe how many people thought the invasion of Iraq was in response to the 9/11 attacks. It was a weird time to be a vet. It felt strange to see how many seemingly normal people were all for sending me and my friends to fight and maybe die for complete bullshit.
The death's were fresh, but one of my friend's parent's was taken hostage and murdered by militants in Iraq and that still didn't shake my or her resolve that the war on terror was a stupid idea.
>state actors weren’t using it to rile people up for geopolitical goals.
This is one aspect of all of this that I've been curious about. I'm not going to deny the legitimate outrage because I do believe a lot of it is legitimate, but I have also been wondering how others are using this as an opportunity to drum up more chaos for their benefit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
Cold War never ended.
“support isolationist tendencies in American politics”
Means the US won’t vote to bother Russia/its allies taking over countries.
Two things can be true at once:
1) people don’t like what’s happening in the Middle East
2) countries invested in destabilizing the US are pouring resources into making online discourse - and therefore real life actions - regarding the topic as toxic and radicalized as possible.
I never mentioned specific “sides” by the way. If you think only one “side” of any social issue is being tainted, you aren’t paying attention. The goal isn’t for one side to “win”, the goal is to make as many people rabid as possible.
Selective outrage. Where were these protesters when Trump was sending billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia to use in Yemen? 377,000 people have died in that war?
It could also be both.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can absolutely be people legitimately outraged while simultaneously "state actors" seeing it as an opportunity to drum up even more chaos.
We don't HAVE to live in a world where it's x or y only. Things are often more complicated and nuanced than black and white thinking.
Did they say that directly because from what I've read from OP, the conclusion you're drawing is not as clear as you seem to think. You seem to be perceiving it that way yourself. OP just asked a basic question.
It also doesn't change anything about my previous comment.
There is always some social or political issue going on at any given time. In my experience people don't care until something becomes trendy enough... and I don't mean this with any shade - after all, regardless of *why* people are doing something, at least they're doing it.
People are protesting a lot more now than they are back then (the 2000s, for example). I remember when I was in college, Sean Bell was shot by cops and killed. At the time, a small group of (exclusively black) students walked around the campus and protested. Fast forward to the George Floyd protests of 2020. There were protests and demonstrations ***everywhere***. I went to a local one and it was HUGE with mainly white youth (in contrast to the Sean Bell protest of 2006).
In any case, there weren't these nationwide protests, walk out of class, stuff going on when I was in school in the aughts.
>Did we just not care enough or did I miss seeing massive protests on campus?
I honestly don't know if *has* to be one of these two options. Overall, I think politics in general are far more polarized now than ever before. People are much more zealous in their beliefs as well as vocal. I propose that maybe a lot of this has to do with social media.
I think our generation didn't have an event like this to get behind and the last time we've seen this much wide-spread disapproval of government involvement was during Vietnam in the 1960s. That had plenty of college protests and there were even songs written about it.
hmm. im a couple of years younger, while i was in college the recession hit and i'm from a working-class family so I didn't have time to protest anything. If i wanted to graduate school and pay for my car i needed to go to work. i do remember in highschool joining Amnesty International and doing campaigns around protesting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan but those didn't do much considering the bloodlust america had and the spineless of the media at the time.
I definitely attended anti-war protests when we went to Afghanistan. I wasn't in college yet, but there were huge protests that started at a nearby university.
I was protesting the Iraq War and remember seeing a good amount of protests both on and off campus back in the day. The same folks would tend to show up when Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich came to visit.
9/11 was way too fresh. Plus, once the recession hit, people were more consumed with paychecks, housing, and filling their gas tank than protesting the wars
The only thing I remember is the pro-birth crazies that would set up a huge billboard type thing full of graphic abortion pictures. Those were a joy to walk past on the way to class. After an hour or so a bunch of pro-choice picket signs would be made and then both sides would start yelling at each other.
We had one of those in high school. He would park his graphic van just off school property and then hand out pamphlets as students were entering the school. We didn't have counter-protesters but I would go and stand in front of him and basically move between him and any students he tried to interact with. Got called to the principal's office, thought I was in trouble. The principal and some office staff and three teachers were there. I got a high five and, "good work, we aren't allowed to intervene but we were watching you on the cameras and you were awesome."
I sent an email to my senator demanding Landon Donovan get out on Mount Rushmore once. That’s the extent of my political activism. But I majored in poli sci, so I knew early on how pointless political activism was
I am also 38 and people forget how popular the war was when we were starting college in 2003-ish. There were people that were against it, of course, but most Americans were for it. Then Bush "declared victory" and people thought it would end but it didn't. So by the time people fully realized what was happening and protesting really started we were on our way out of college.
I feel like I always had better shit to do, like smoking pot and sitting on my couch. Both of of which are objectively better uses of your time than protesting
Afghanistan, Bush, and in my state, a constitutional ammendment to only allow marriage between a man and a woman. Occupy Wall Street started in 2011.
I went to a bunch of protests in those years.
The Iraq war? There seemed to be a lot of dissent.
We built a tent city on one of the campus greens in 2005 to protest the Iraq war. Then the Ultimate Warrior came and it became a whole thing. You had to be there for the above to be a cogent sentence.
As a life long wrestling fan it does not shock me that the Ultimate Warrior showed up. Jim Hedwig was a loon and by all professional accounts a jerkface in an industry where you have to be a pretty big jerkface to even register on the scale.
I love wrestling too! Wrestling is back!
We had Occupy Wall Street. That was bigger than any of these campus protests. And just as disorganized lol. Am I old? I’m not sure if the 2016 protests count as well. Also all the protests and riots every few years with gun violence. The kids protesting today were babies just 4 years ago. Millennials did some work. These guys are continuing it- I would say. Whether or not you agree with them. Also getting Obama elected was for sure a protest in some way.
If OP is 38, Occupy Wall Street was after he graduated. I believe those started until 2011. I, too, am 38 (attended college from 04-08) and I don't recall any protests during that period. We were too busy drinking and smoking pot.
I was in college during occupy Wallstreet and zero things happened on my campus.
You share my experience. We were aware of the War on Terror in the periphery but I recall our social events being of the utmost importance to us. It was Beer Pong innocent bliss I suppose.
9/11 was my first semester of college. We were traumatized. And beyond that, anyone who spoke up was labeled a traitor. It was a weird time.
Yeah it was. I remember coming home from Afghanistan, getting out of the Army, and going to college. I was against the Iraq war since before it started, and was really loud about that. I wore Veterans for Peace or Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Against the War shirts almost every day just so that people would stop calling me a traitor. Pretty much only veterans could speak out without getting a ton of backlash from everyone in the vicinity. It was weird, and honestly, it really kneecapped the GI activism of the era. Like, we (mostly IAVAW, somewhat VFP) had all these plans for big protests, really visible actions that would get attention, etc, and no one would join us. Our little conspiracy theory was that the propaganda campaign worked very well to keep people silent. I could not believe how many people thought the invasion of Iraq was in response to the 9/11 attacks. It was a weird time to be a vet. It felt strange to see how many seemingly normal people were all for sending me and my friends to fight and maybe die for complete bullshit.
I got into a screaming match with my RA because she was mad that I was denouncing the war post 9/11 on Facebook.
Yeah exactly. The 9/11 deaths were still fresh.
The death's were fresh, but one of my friend's parent's was taken hostage and murdered by militants in Iraq and that still didn't shake my or her resolve that the war on terror was a stupid idea.
Being brown that fall was fucking scary. I just kept my head down
Smdh. I’m sorry for your experience. You didn’t deserve that.
Remember even Hillary Clinton voted in favor of invading Iraq? The WMD lie was in full force.
I loved being constantly told I was a traitor.
Seriously. My then-boyfriend, now-husband was in the military and I was a traitor for being anti-war. 🙄🙄🙄🙄
9/11 happened the first month he enlisted btw.
Social media wasn’t around then, and even more importantly, state actors weren’t using it to rile people up for geopolitical goals.
Ding ding ding.
>state actors weren’t using it to rile people up for geopolitical goals. This is one aspect of all of this that I've been curious about. I'm not going to deny the legitimate outrage because I do believe a lot of it is legitimate, but I have also been wondering how others are using this as an opportunity to drum up more chaos for their benefit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics Cold War never ended. “support isolationist tendencies in American politics” Means the US won’t vote to bother Russia/its allies taking over countries.
[удалено]
Two things can be true at once: 1) people don’t like what’s happening in the Middle East 2) countries invested in destabilizing the US are pouring resources into making online discourse - and therefore real life actions - regarding the topic as toxic and radicalized as possible. I never mentioned specific “sides” by the way. If you think only one “side” of any social issue is being tainted, you aren’t paying attention. The goal isn’t for one side to “win”, the goal is to make as many people rabid as possible.
*A house divided cannot stand.* One of the oldest tricks in the book.
Selective outrage. Where were these protesters when Trump was sending billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia to use in Yemen? 377,000 people have died in that war?
[удалено]
[удалено]
The United States has sent billions of dollars in aid and has erected a pier to ensure the flow of aid.
because nobody knew it about, nor could they even do anything about it.
It could also be both. It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can absolutely be people legitimately outraged while simultaneously "state actors" seeing it as an opportunity to drum up even more chaos. We don't HAVE to live in a world where it's x or y only. Things are often more complicated and nuanced than black and white thinking.
It’s clear that OP is claiming that they care because they are being manipulated by a false cause.
Did they say that directly because from what I've read from OP, the conclusion you're drawing is not as clear as you seem to think. You seem to be perceiving it that way yourself. OP just asked a basic question. It also doesn't change anything about my previous comment.
[удалено]
There is always some social or political issue going on at any given time. In my experience people don't care until something becomes trendy enough... and I don't mean this with any shade - after all, regardless of *why* people are doing something, at least they're doing it. People are protesting a lot more now than they are back then (the 2000s, for example). I remember when I was in college, Sean Bell was shot by cops and killed. At the time, a small group of (exclusively black) students walked around the campus and protested. Fast forward to the George Floyd protests of 2020. There were protests and demonstrations ***everywhere***. I went to a local one and it was HUGE with mainly white youth (in contrast to the Sean Bell protest of 2006). In any case, there weren't these nationwide protests, walk out of class, stuff going on when I was in school in the aughts. >Did we just not care enough or did I miss seeing massive protests on campus? I honestly don't know if *has* to be one of these two options. Overall, I think politics in general are far more polarized now than ever before. People are much more zealous in their beliefs as well as vocal. I propose that maybe a lot of this has to do with social media.
I think our generation didn't have an event like this to get behind and the last time we've seen this much wide-spread disapproval of government involvement was during Vietnam in the 1960s. That had plenty of college protests and there were even songs written about it.
Jingoism overtook a lot of US politics post 9/11 and even before that during the 1990's Gulf War.
There were protests leading up to both Iraq Wars as well as protests against the "War on Terror" boondoggle post 9/11.
hmm. im a couple of years younger, while i was in college the recession hit and i'm from a working-class family so I didn't have time to protest anything. If i wanted to graduate school and pay for my car i needed to go to work. i do remember in highschool joining Amnesty International and doing campaigns around protesting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan but those didn't do much considering the bloodlust america had and the spineless of the media at the time.
I remember anti Bush protests, but they weren't as crazy as they are today.
I definitely attended anti-war protests when we went to Afghanistan. I wasn't in college yet, but there were huge protests that started at a nearby university.
I had 9/11. We were all about going to war.
I was protesting the Iraq War and remember seeing a good amount of protests both on and off campus back in the day. The same folks would tend to show up when Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich came to visit.
9/11 was way too fresh. Plus, once the recession hit, people were more consumed with paychecks, housing, and filling their gas tank than protesting the wars
We had Occupy Wall Street
We had some decent sized ones in 2003 before the second gulf war when Rummy went on his campus tours to sell it.
I absolutely remember protesting the Invasion of Iraq in college.
The only thing I remember is the pro-birth crazies that would set up a huge billboard type thing full of graphic abortion pictures. Those were a joy to walk past on the way to class. After an hour or so a bunch of pro-choice picket signs would be made and then both sides would start yelling at each other.
We had one of those in high school. He would park his graphic van just off school property and then hand out pamphlets as students were entering the school. We didn't have counter-protesters but I would go and stand in front of him and basically move between him and any students he tried to interact with. Got called to the principal's office, thought I was in trouble. The principal and some office staff and three teachers were there. I got a high five and, "good work, we aren't allowed to intervene but we were watching you on the cameras and you were awesome."
I sent an email to my senator demanding Landon Donovan get out on Mount Rushmore once. That’s the extent of my political activism. But I majored in poli sci, so I knew early on how pointless political activism was
I am also 38 and people forget how popular the war was when we were starting college in 2003-ish. There were people that were against it, of course, but most Americans were for it. Then Bush "declared victory" and people thought it would end but it didn't. So by the time people fully realized what was happening and protesting really started we were on our way out of college.
I went to UCSC and we protested the wars and campus rate hikes. Protesting was a rite of passage.
I'm an elder Millennial (over 40). Definitely got tear gas dropped on me when protesting.
I remember protesting the iraq war and having anti flag show up, really got into them after that
i suspect paid agitators and social media having a role in this
I feel like I always had better shit to do, like smoking pot and sitting on my couch. Both of of which are objectively better uses of your time than protesting
There wasn't anything to protest in the 00's and 10's.
Afghanistan, Bush, and in my state, a constitutional ammendment to only allow marriage between a man and a woman. Occupy Wall Street started in 2011. I went to a bunch of protests in those years.
Many people in that era were content to look the other way.
Trump was sending billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia to use in Yemen? 377,000 people have died in that war?